Matcha Aisu (green tea icecream)

Happy New Year all, celebrating the new year with a home made ice cream recipe. If you like green tea, you'll want to bookmark this simple recipe.

For those of who do not know what a Matcha is, it's powdered green tea leaves that has been dried and processed to powder form. It is more concentrated than Sencha. Sencha is just green tea in its normal form, you add it to hot water and drink it like hot tea.

With Matcha, you can drink it, cook it, bake it, it's very user friendly and there are so many recipes on the Internet that you can try and have fun with if you have some Matcha.

After just returning from Japan, more than anything, I am craving Matcha ice cream. It's terrible having to leave that place. I am already planning my next trip but it won't be for some time yet so for today, I am hoping to replicate that wonderful Japanese ice cream.

Recipe below is for 2-4 people or in my case, one :) Alright, I'll share, if I really have to..

Ingredients
• 2 Tbsp Matcha Green Tea Powder
• 2/3 cup Granulated Sugar
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 3/4 cup Double Cream

Method

1. A = Mix 2 Tbsp of sugar with the Matcha powder 
2. B = Mix remainder sugar with yolks
3. Heat milk (do not let boil) 
4. Remove from heat, add A+B to warm milk, mix well till smooth paste.
5. Return to heat, ( do not let boil) mix well to keep smooth
6. Remove from heat, strain mix and leave to cool in fridge
7. Start whipping cream for folding to Matcha mix.
8. Fold whipped cream to Matcha mix when the mix is cold enough.
9. Put in your chilled ice cream bowl container and leave in freezer. No need to churn with ice cream maker. 

Here are some photos from some of the steps.

There you have it, you chill it in the freezer for few hours and voila! Your very own Matcha ice cream ;) I'm going to serve mine in a Japanese bowl with some azuki (red beans). Oishi!  

Brandied Cranberry Cookies

My Leaning Tower of Cookies

Another baking day this weekend, I am having a lot of fun getting back in the kitchen, just baking cookies for Xmas. I love the smell of baked cookies in the house. Freshly baked warm buttery cookies for arfternoon tea, what could be better? I found this recipe by chance when visiting sitemeter, Simply Recipes was featured on the site and I gotta say, love this website. It has so many recipes of cookies to choose from. Love it!

Recipe from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/brandied_cranberry_white_chocolate_chip_cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup of brandy (to soak the cranberries in, then saving 1 1/4 teaspoons of it for later)
• 1 cup of dried cranberries
• 1 cup (two sticks) of butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup of lightly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of white chocolate chips

http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/butter_converter.html
Two sticks is equal to 226gram

Method

• Put the cranberries in a wide and shallow bowl, pour in brandy. Enough so they're are drowning. Just keep swimming my babies!!! Cover and place in the fridge for an hour or more. Afterwards, place a colander over a bowl and pour the cranberries and brandy through, putting the cranberries and the brandy they soaked in aside.
• Preheat oven to 375°F. Beat the crap out of the butter until it's light and fluffy. Add the sugars and beat again until light, fluffy and well incorporated.
• Add the eggs, vanilla extract, and add 1 1/4 teaspoons of the brandy that the cranberries soaked in (as for the rest, I suggest popping it in a glass and topping it off a bit for yourself). Beat well until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl midway through to ensure even mixing.
• Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, then add to the mixture a bit at a time, beating until just mixed. Fold in the brandy soaked cranberries and white chocolate chips. Let them chill out for 15 minutes in the fridge to commiserate their fate. 
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (a baker's best friend) and place rounded spoonfuls down on the sheet. Bake at 375°F for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for a minute, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

My kitchen smells lovely and I am slightly tipsy, it's all good! Gotta love this recipe :) Happy Holidays folks. Just keep on baking!! Errr, okay I nearly forgot to mention that I threw in some pistachio in the dough... heeehehe. That's also good for ya, puts hair on ya chest!

Gingerbread Men and Xmas cookies

Gingerbread Men and Xmas cookies

Ingredients

• 150g Western Star unsalted butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup golden syrup - I used molasses instead of golden syrup!
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3 cups plain flour
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• Writing fudge and rainbow chocolate chips, to decorate

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C. Line two large oven trays.
• Place butter, golden syrup and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil. Remove from heat. Add bicarbonate of soda and stir to combine. Transfer to a large heatproof bowl.
• Set aside to cool.
• Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and baking powder over butter mixture. Add the egg and stir until combined. Turn on to a lightly floured surface and gently knead until smooth. Divide dough into two portions. Shape each portion into a disc and cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 45 minutes.
• Roll one portion between two sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick.
• Using 6-7cm pastry cutters, cut shapes from dough, re-rolling scraps. Place on the lined trays, 3cm apart to allow for spreading. Repeat with remaining dough.
• Bake in the oven, 1 tray at a time, until just firm to touch.
• Remove and set aside for 5 minutes to cool before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Decorate using writing fudge and chocolate chips.

Recipe: taste.com.au

This one is sitting on my mantlepiece ;) Hands off Santa!!!

Who's Dreaming of White Christmas?

WHITE CHRISTMAS

Recipe from Woolworths Supermarket catalogue

Ingredients

• 3 cups crispy rice cereal
• 2 cups dessicated coconut
• 1 cup sultanas
• ½ cup red glace cherries, halved
• ½ cup blanched almonds, roasted, chopped coarsely
• 395g can NESTLE Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 100g Copha white vegetable shortening, chopped coarsely
• 100g Nestle White Melts plus ½ cup extra drizzle later.

Method

• Grease and line an 18cm * 28cm lamington pan. Combine crispy rice cereal, coconut, sultanas, cherries and almonds in a large bowl.
• In a small saucepan combined Nestle Sweetened Condensed Milk, Copha and Nestle White melts, stir over low heat until mixture is melted and smooth. Stir in dry ingredients. Press mixture evenly into prepared pan. Refrigerate until set.
• Place extra Nestle White Melts in a small microwave safe bowl. Microwave uncovered on Medium for 1 minute. Stir. Repeat process in 30 second interval until method. Drizzle Nestle White over slice. Cut in square to serve, Store covered in refrigerator.